


Dune: Paul’s Women, Chapter 14

by Wodric



Series: Dune: Paul’s Women [9]
Category: Dune (1984), Dune - All Media Types, Dune Series - Frank Herbert, Frank Herbert's Dune (2000)
Genre: F/F, Female Relationships, Oral Sex, Partial Nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 08:31:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10760532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wodric/pseuds/Wodric
Summary: Chapter’s summary:Small Chapter where Jessica and the attractive Shadout Mapes continue their relationship.Paul and the Duke talk (here the changes are minimal).See chapter 13: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7687789See chapter 16: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10764924





	Dune: Paul’s Women, Chapter 14

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't do any changes to the Chapter 15 from the original book.

Paul’s Women

Book One: DUNE

Chapter 14

 

"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man–with human flesh."

– from "Collected Sayings of Muad’Dib" by the Princess Irulan

 

Silently she lifted Mapes’ hand and escaped from her embrace. Softly she rose from the bed and leaved the bedroom. For a moment she thought to cover herself with a robe but decided not to. The fresh air of the nigh wrapped her naked body still sweated by the moments of pleasure that Mapes had given to her.

Jessica crosses her arms embracing herself, smashing her breasts. She shuddered in a sudden chill. The nights could be cold in the palace. In her small living room she approached one of the protected windows and looked outside, to the darkness of the night.

Somewhere outside Paul was with his father. The Atreides were fighting for their survival and Jessica wanted to be sure to know how she could help. But there were so many paths, so many possibilities and treason could always be expected.

She looked back to the bedroom door, still opened, and saw Mapes’ naked body still asleep in the bed, half covered by the sheets. Unconsciously Jessica smiled. Treason? Were her moments with Mapes a treason to her relation with the Duke?

Maybe! Yes… Leto was the only man of her life and her moments with Mapes were the first that with a woman since she had left the Bene Gesserit school.

Then another thought reached her. Was treason her relationship with her son?

She shook her head.

Paul had a lust for her. She knew it and couldn’t control him anymore. Her son was a lonely teenager that needed tender love. And most of all he needed a woman to teach him new paths, introducing him to mating rituals that he was completely unversed. It was not just a question of introducing him to sex. It was also a question of introducing him to the contact with a more feminine approach of the world.

He was always so sure about himself in almost all the matters, but at the same time he seemed so lost, so lonely, so needy when he comes in contact with the opposite sex.

She shook her head again and went back to the bed. It was her time to give pleasure to Mapes.

***

The Duke said: "Paul, I’m doing a hateful thing, but I must." He stood beside the portable poison snooper that had been brought into the conference room for their breakfast. The thing’s sensor arms hung limply over the table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead.

The Duke’s attention was directed out the windows at the landing field and its roiling of dust against the morning sky.

Paul had a viewer in front of him containing a short filmclip on Fremen religious practices.

The clip had been compiled by one of Hawat’s experts and Paul found himself disturbed by the references to himself.

"Mahdi!"

"Lisan al-Gaib!"

He could close his eyes and recall the shouts of the crowds. So that is what they hope, he thought. And he remembered what the old Reverend Mother had said: Kwisatz Haderach. The memories touched his feelings of terrible purpose, shading this strange world with sensations of familiarity that he could not understand.

"A hateful thing," the Duke said.

"What do you mean, sir?"

Leto turned, looked down at his son. "Because the Harkonnens think to trick me by making me distrust your mother. They don’t know that I’d sooner distrust myself. And you must help her, you must support her."

"I don’t understand, sir" – his voice was insecure for a brief moment.

Again, Leto looked out the windows. The white sun was well up into its morning quad-rant. Milky light picked out a boiling of dust clouds that spilled over into the blind canyons interfingering the Shield Wall.

Slowly, speaking in a slow voice to contain his anger, the Duke explained to Paul about the mysterious note.

"You might just as well mistrust me," Paul said.

"They have to think they’ve succeeded," the Duke said. "They must think me this much of a fool. It must look real. Even your mother may not know the sham."

"But, sir! Why?"

"Your mother’s response must not be an act. Oh, she’s capable of a supreme act... but too much rides on this. I hope to smoke out a traitor. It must seem that I’ve been completely cozened. She must be hurt this way that she does not suffer greater hurt. She is a strong woman, but she will need your support in this."

"Why do you tell me, Father? Maybe I’ll give it away."

"They’ll not watch you in this thing," the Duke said. "You’ll keep the secret. You must." He walked to the windows, spoke without turning. "This way, if anything should happen to me, you can tell her the truth – that I never doubted her, not for the smallest instant. I should want her to know this."

Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father’s words, spoke quickly: "Nothing’s going to happen to you, sir. The –"

"Be silent, Son."

Paul stared at his father’s back, seeing the fatigue in the angle of the neck, in the line of the shoulders, in the slow movements.

"You’re just tired, Father."

"I am tired," the Duke agreed. "I’m morally tired. The melancholy degeneration of the Great Houses has afflicted me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people once."

Paul spoke in quick anger: "Our House hasn’t degenerated!"

"Hasn’t it?"

The Duke turned, faced his son, revealing dark circles beneath hard eyes, a cynical twist of mouth. "I should wed your mother, make her my Duchess. Yet... my unwedded state gives some Houses hope they may yet ally with me through their marriageable daughters." He shrugged. "So, I..."

"Mother has explained this to me."

"Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura," the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura."

"You lead well," Paul protested. "You govern well. Men follow you willingly and love you."

"My propaganda corps is one of the finest," the Duke said. Again, he turned to stare out at the basin. "There’s greater possibility for us here on Arrakis than the Imperium could ever suspect. Yet sometimes I think it’d have been better if we’d run for it, gone renegade. Sometimes I wish we could sink back into anonymity among the people, become less exposed to..."

"Father!"

"Yes, I am tired," the Duke said. "Did you know we’re using spice residue as raw material and already have our own factory to manufacture filmbase?"

"Sir?"

"We mustn’t run short of filmbase," the Duke said. "Else, how could we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?"

"You should get some rest," Paul said.

Again, the Duke faced his son. "Arrakis has another advantage I almost forgot to mention. Spice is in everything here. You breathe it and eat it in almost everything. And I find that this imparts a certain natural immunity to some of the most common poisons of the Assassins’ Handbook. And the need to watch every drop of water puts all food production – yeast culture, hydroponics, chemavit, everything – under the strictest surveillance. We cannot kill off large segments of our population with poison – and we cannot be attacked this way, either. Arrakis makes us moral and ethical."

Paul started to speak, but the Duke cut him off, saying: "I have to have someone I can say these things to, Son." He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where even the flowers were gone now – trampled by the dew gatherers, wilted under the early sun.

"On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. What is to become of you if anything happens to me? You’ll not be a renegade House, but a guerrilla House–running, hunted."

Paul groped for words, could find nothing to say. He had never seen his father this despon-dent.

"To hold Arrakis," the Duke said, "one is faced with decisions that may cost one his self-respect." He pointed out the window to the Atreides green and black banner hanging limply from a staff at the edge of the landing field. "That honorable banner could come to mean many evil things."

Paul swallowed in a dry throat. His father’s words carried futility, a sense of fatalism that left the boy with an empty feeling in his chest.

The Duke took an antifatigue tablet from a pocket, gulped it dry. "Power and fear," he said.

"The tools of statecraft. I must order new emphasis on guerrilla training for you. That filmclip there – they call you ’Mahdi’ – ’Lisan al-Gaib’ – as a last resort, you might capitalize on that."

Paul stared at his father, watching the shoulders straighten as the tablet did its work, but remembering the words of fear and doubt.

"What’s keeping that ecologist?" the Duke muttered. "I told Thufir to have him here early."


End file.
